Officers working at the Roma port of entry recently discovered an invasive beetle they hadn’t seen before hidden among vegetables in a produce shipment from Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Roma port of entry inspected produce from a tractor trailer hauling fresh vegetables on July 18, according to a news release.
Officers found the pest while they were inspecting maguey leaves — the thick, long and pointy leaves from an agave plant.
An entomologist from the area inspected it two days later and determined the beetle was a “Acanthoderes funeraria Bates (Cerambycidae), a First-in-Nation interception, by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Systematic Entomology Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.,” according to the news release.
The insect, also known as a longhorn beetle, forms part of the Cermabycidae family which are known to feed on either wood materials or herbaceous plants.
They are considered invasive pests and may pose significant risk to the nation’s agriculture.
“Our frontline CBP agriculture specialists at Roma Port of Entry examine a significant amount of fresh produce shipments on a daily basis and their tenacity and dedication to the mission of safeguarding American agriculture led to their discovery of this first in nation pest interception,” Andres Guerra, port director in Roma and Rio Grande City.
The truck and the vegetables were refused entry into the U.S. and returned to Mexico.
